SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Almost 100 people gathered at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre on Tuesday for a vigil honouring 14 women who were murdered in 1989 at l'Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.

Cpl. Sally MacKinnon, front, presented a rose, along with Sara Anderson, middle, and Megan Harman, left, in remembrance of 14 women who were murdered at the l'Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in 1989. - Jessica Davey-Quantick/NNSL photo

On Dec. 6 of that year, Marc Lepine entered a classroom and told the male staff and students to leave, before shooting all nine women in the room. He then moved through the campus, targeting women. In the end, he shot 28 people and killed 14 women, before killing himself. He claimed he was fighting feminism after he had been rejected from the school.

Twenty-seven years later, Caroline Cochrane, the minister responsible for the status of women, says Canada still has a long way to go to address gender-based violence.

"We definitely need to do better," she said. "Violence is still a huge issue within the Northwest Territories. We're second highest in violence against women and children. It's not OK."

Status of Women Canada reports women and girls are twice as likely as men and boys to report family violence to police, and women over age 15 represent around 80 per cent of all reported intimate partner violence. Indigenous women are even more at risk - a 2014 Statistics Canada report found indigenous women are three times more likely to be victims than non-indigenous people, and women in the territories are victimized at a rate eight times higher than those living in the provinces.

The RCMP reports 1,181 indigenous women were killed or went missing across Canada between 1980 and 2012.

Earlier this year, the federal government announced the five commissioners who will make up the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, who will produce a final report by the end of 2018.

Gail Cyr, who spoke at the vigil on Tuesday, says it's about time.

"We fought for 50 years to say it matters. And the argument is still there," she said of violence against aboriginal women.

Originally from Manitoba, Cyr a member of Cree nation and has been in the NWT since the 1970s. "Personally I've been attacked right in broad daylight in mid-day. And it was with a pejorative of 'squaw,'" she said.

This is a conversation that Cochrane told the room everyone needs to be involved in.

"It always has been looked at as a female issue," she said. "It's not a female issue. It's everyone's issue. Indigenous women are more prominent but violence does cross all races."

Cochrane warned against getting too comfortable in the believe that feminists have achieved what they've set out to achieve.

"I think that the misconception that feminism has done what they need to do, and that women are at equal par is totally a fallacy," said Cochrane. "Anytime that people try to address a social issue, racism, ageism, gender, any of those topics, when people are vocal and come out, society as a whole doesn't like that. So they tend to say, when we get too strong advocacy, then we are part of the problem. We're not part of the problem."

What society needs, she said, is for people to speak up on the topic, whether it's on policy or witnessing violence or harassment downtown, at home, or at the workplace.

"It is not OK to shut up and be quiet," she said. "When you be quiet you're part of the problem."

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